


Control (Collection)

by phoenix_in_winter



Category: Hannibal (TV), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Allergies, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, Sneezing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 13:38:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16873881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenix_in_winter/pseuds/phoenix_in_winter
Summary: A collection of one-shots. Various fandoms; check the chapter index. Cross-posted.





	1. Rescue (Hannibal - Will Graham)

He’s vaguely aware that Alana is still speaking, but her words are being filtered through a haze of welling tears and the sound of his own ragged breathing, echoing in his head. Her voice falters as he lets his eyes drift upward, inhaling sharply through chapped, parted lips. He catches himself and forces his eyes to meet hers, pressing his tongue hard against the roof of his mouth. He wills the incessant itch to subside, just for a few minutes. Just until she leaves. When that doesn’t work, he gives up trying to control his own body and instead attempts to send her away through sheer mental force.

“Will?” She’s still here.

“Yeah.” He’s taking rapid, shallow breaths, trying to keep himself together. He’s leaning up against his desk, fingers curled tightly around the smooth wooden edge.

“Are you okay?” Her concern washes over him like a sudden ocean swell, pushing him back even further against the desk.

“I—  _heh._ ” He glances desperately around the office. “Fine.”

She doesn’t look convinced.

“Dr. Bloom.” The words are precise but rounded, somehow; stable and calm and welcome. “Would you excuse us for a moment?”

Alana looks startled, as though she had been so intensely focused on Will that she hadn’t heard Dr. Lecter enter the room. Not that Will had heard him either. He’d snuck in under the cover of shadows, like… a…. Will can’t decide what sort of animal Hannibal Lecter would be. Something dark and smooth and majestic.

“Of course.” Alana had recovered while Will was contemplating metaphors ( _similes,_  corrects the voice of some long-forgotten English teacher), and her voice brings him back. She glances over her shoulder at him on the way out the door. As soon as she’s out of sight, he feels his shoulders fall.

It takes a moment to remember that he’s not alone in the dim light of the lecture hall; that it was not his fervent wishing that had ushered Alana out of the room. He looks up to find Dr. Lecter standing patiently at the edge of the circle of lamplight.

Will realizes with sudden embarrassment that his nose is running. He presses the back of his wrist to it, having decided to sacrifice his jacket to the cause in the middle of his lecture several hours before. It’s better than sniffling like a child. “Did—  _heh._ ” His breath hitches alarmingly from behind his sleeve. “Did you need something, Dr. Lecter?” As appreciative as he is for the rescue, he would really just rather be alone. With his dogs. In his own house.

A flicker of something – amusement? – passes across the doctor's face. “Not particularly. I was merely passing through.”

It’s not really an explanation, but Will is too preoccupied to push the issue, focused on the maddening itch that’s making its way through his nose. He swallows convulsively and presses his wrist harder against his upper lip.

They stand in silence for another moment, Will gasping desperately, but as quietly as he can manage, until—

“Huh-  _ktchh!_ ” He looks up, startled. “Sorry, excuse me, I—  _heh…ktchhh-uh!_   _Ktchh!_ ” He blinks, dazed. His nose is running freely now.

“Gesundheit.” Dr. Lecter, who doesn’t seem fazed in the least by the outburst, is holding out a white handkerchief.

Will’s face is burning madly, and even though he would like nothing so much as to disappear into thin air (or maybe just curl up under his desk; that’s an option, right?), he decides that accepting the handkerchief is the least awful out of all the possible outcomes here. As he reaches out to accept it, his breath hitches again.

“Thang—  _huh._  Tha— _eh—eh…_ ” He shakes his head in both frustration and resignation. Dr. Lecter merely looks on, impassive. “ _Heh- heh-gCHUMPH._ ” He gets the handkerchief up just in time, and smothers the sneeze into its folds. “Thangks.” Dr. Lecter nods regally. Will’s breath hitches again, and he braces himself against the desk, eyes darting skyward before snapping closed again. “ _Heh-chummp. Huh-chumph. Heh-ngxt. Ngxxt. Ngt. Heh-CHUoo!_ ” The last sneeze leaves him dizzy and panting, and when he recovers, he’s startled to find Dr. Lecter at his side.

“Will.”

Will looks up, blearily. There’s still something playing behind the doctor’s eyes. Is he… impressed? Still amused? It’s impossible to tell.

There’s a warm, firm hand on his shoulder, and a tone that leaves no room for argument. “Will. I’ll drive you home.”


	2. Unexpected (X-Men:First Class - Charles)

It was late – nearly 1:30 am, according to the clock on the nightstand – when a whine cut through his thoughts.  _“Errrriiiik….”_  Erik rolled his eyes, catching the coin he’d been weaving between his fingers. Charles had gone out to dinner with Raven, who had returned hours ago. Charles’ voice, slightly slurred and petulant even in his mind, confirmed Erik’s assumption that Charles had spent the intervening hours in a pub. Or three.

 _“Erriiik. Where –”_  The signal cut out suddenly, and in the silence, Erik felt a sudden tingle in his nostrils. By the time he had rubbed it away with the flat of his palm, Charles was back in his head. “ _Where are you?_ ”

Erik briefly considered pretending he hadn’t heard, but instead sighed and replied, “In my room,” confident that Charles would hear him. A minute or two later, he heard uneven footsteps in the hall, punctuated several times by a sharp “ _ktschh!_ ” He unlocked the door with a flick of his fingers, not bothering to move from his position in bed. He’d been sitting up against the headboard, still dressed in his trousers and a white undershirt, contemplating the next week’s training regimen. Planning, and sleep, would have to wait.

Erik set his coin to spinning just above his palm as Charles opened the door, then froze with his hand still on the doorknob and sneezed again, openly: “ _kishhh-uh!_ ” Erik raised his eyebrows. He’d seen Charles ill, and he’d seen Charles drunk, but he’d never seen Charles sneeze without a single thought to decorum. In public, he was most likely to stifle his sneezes between thumb and forefinger into a tightly clenched fist; at home, he directed well-controlled outbursts into fresh white handkerchiefs and apologized politely in their wake.

“Erriik,” Charles moaned again, aloud this time, moving unsteadily toward the bed.

“Charles –” Erik began, but it was too late: Charles had already flopped dramatically onto the bed, stomach to the mattress and face pressed into Erik’s hip. Erik shifted uncomfortably, but it only gave Charles the opportunity to extricate his right arm and throw it across Erik’s lap. “Charles, I –”

_“Ki-hih-TSCHH!”_

Erik blinked in surprise, looking down to find that, yes, Charles had sneezed directly into his side. His only movement toward covering his mouth had been to tighten the arm around Erik’s waist, as though it could cut through him like a ghost and reach his nose in time.

Charles blinked up at him through streaming eyes, breath already hitching again.  _“Sorry_ , _”_  said Charles’ voice in his head, sounding more amused than sincere, before repeating the process:  _“Kih-TSCH!”_

Erik tightened in a moment of frustration, but then sighed and let his shoulders come down. His shirt would wash. As would his skin. He sighed, then ran his right hand through Charles’ hair and brought it down to rest between his shoulder blades. “How was your evening?” he asked.

Charles lifted his head a bit, straining to meet his eyes at such a sharp angle. “Bet a girl,” he said, consonants distorted so that it took Erik a moment to realize that Charles had  _met_  a girl, not used one as collateral in a poker match.

“And?”

“Add she was dice,” he shrugged, directing the words into Erik’s hip.  _“Ki-SHUH!”_

Erik raised his eyebrows expectantly, still waiting for an explanation of Charles’ current state. When Charles raised his head again, his eyes and nose were both streaming.

“She had perfube,” Charles admitted miserably.  _“Kuh-SHIHH!”_  He shook his head slightly, allergic tears and mucous still shining on his face. “Add a cadt.”

When he buried his face back into his friend’s side and groaned, Erik rubbed his back in sympathy. Charles’ allergies weren’t dangerous – even now, his breathing was fairly clear – but they were numerous and persistent, refusing to let up until every last bit of the offending material was gone. In spring, the windows of the mansion were always kept tightly closed. It must have been some girl – or some alcohol – to make Charles move  _toward_  the source of his misery.

_“Ki-TSCHuh!”_

“You should take a shower, Charles.” He got a head-shake in reply that was both exhausted and defiant, like a child who simply refused to get out of bed for school. “You’ll feel better.” Charles’ head-shaking had turned into nose-wiping. Onto Erik’s shirt. He felt a momentary surge of frustration again. “Haven’t you got a handkerchief? One that  _I’m not wearing?_ ”

Charles shrunk back for a moment, ashamed and maybe a little bit frightened. Erik sighed. “I’m sorry. But… haven’t you?”

Charles snuffled. “I  _had_. But…” he gestured vaguely. The dismissive motion was accompanied by a flash in Erik’s head of a soaked, crumpled white cloth being dropped in the foyer with Charles’ coat. Erik sighed and pulled away, disentangling Charles’ fingers from the hem of his t-shirt. He was met with a muffled whine of objection.

“Just for a second. You really need to let me go.” He’d forgotten how clingy Charles could be when he was drunk. Sliding just far enough away to maneuver without elbowing Charles in the forehead, he carefully stripped off his t-shirt, avoiding the wet spot by his right hip. He balled up the shirt, wet spot in the middle, and turned back to Charles, who had pushed himself up on his left elbow and was frozen, eyes closed and mouth open, with his right hand poised vaguely in front of his face. Erik waited expectantly as Charles took two quick breaths before his face crumpled.

 _“Hih… ih… CHUUU!”_  His hand provided some protection, but Erik still felt spray on his bare skin.

“Here,” he told Charles, who was contemplating his right hand with a look of confusion. “It’s a lost cause anyway.” He probably could have gotten up and rummaged through his dresser drawers, but it was late, and he had to admit that staying in bed with the warmth other another person beside him was the much more appealing option.

Charles looked at the shirt with renewed confusion, nose twitching slightly and still running fiercely. Erik laughed. “You’ve already decided that my shirt makes an excellent handkerchief. We may as well make the arrangement official.” Charles had the grace to flush, but reached out nonetheless and took the undershirt, wiping his hand on it with great concentration.

“If you’re not going to shower, then lay back down,” Erik told him. Charles had moved on to tending to his nose, and his look of relief at clearing out some of the congestion only highlighted his exhaustion. It was closer than not to 2 am, and Erik imagined that he must have been sneezing almost constantly for several hours now.

Charles rolled back onto his stomach without complaint, t-shirt still pressed to his nose. When Erik slid down to join him, Charles pressed himself tightly against his side, forcing Erik to pull away again slightly to rescue his left arm from Charles’ weight. After a few minutes of uncomfortable contortions, they were finally fitted together. Charles was asleep almost instantly, rousing just enough to tense in preparation for a breathy  _“ki-CHU!”_  that was more or less directed at the ball of fabric still clenched in his loosening fist. When Charles had fallen back into slightly congested snores, Erik used a corner of the t-shirt to swipe at his friend’s still-running nose before his chest could become a handkerchief as well.

Erik stared up at the ceiling, one hand combing idly through Charles’ hair, letting his body slowly relax under the weight and warmth of the other man. It wasn’t what he expected, but it was nice. More than nice, even. He locked the door and turned out the lights with lazy, smooth motions, and, fingers still curled gently into Charles' hair, dropped off to sleep as well.


End file.
